


Sacrifice

by thuvia ptarth (thuviaptarth)



Category: Scott Westerfeld - Uglies books
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, recipient:anotherjuxtaposition, yuletide2006
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-24
Updated: 2006-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:42:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thuviaptarth/pseuds/thuvia%20ptarth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Cable no longer numbers her sacrifices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sacrifice

The first thing Miranda Cable sacrificed was her naivete.

Her diploma was so new she hadn't had it framed yet when she treated her first assault victim, and she didn't even realize what she was looking at until the resident in charge barked out a demand for the rape kit. The victim was an ugly, about two years pre-op, who had sneaked into New Pretty Town for kicks and had had the bad luck to stumble across a set of pretties hyped up on an untested combination of designer drugs. There was no question who the assailants were: they were brought in right behind her, scratched and bruised and still high.

"They're supposed to _test_ those drugs," one of the nurses said, cleaning one boy's wounds with unusual roughness.

A warden shook her head, her face twisted in an expression Miranda had never seen outside old news flatties: disgust, maybe, or hatred. "Some people are just born Rusty," the warden said.

The E.R. generally dealt with accidents. Assaults, Miranda soon learned, were infrequent but regular, one or two a month. When they got tired enough for philosophy, the doctors and nurses argued about the causes in the staff lounge. About half thought the perpetrators were Rusty throwbacks, incurably bad; the other half blamed drugs.

Miranda listened, sipped burnt coffeee, said nothing. She knew better than to accept either of those theories, and her colleagues should have known better, too. The Rusties, with all their pathologies and evils and idiocies, had been no different from people now; and apparently people now were no different from the Rusties then.

Capturing and fixing a few criminals was a stopgap. The city needed a more drastic solution. Her career plans were the next thing she gave up: after six months in the E.R., she switched her specialty from emergency care to neurology, her goals from a live practice to research. She wanted to know what caused violent impulses, what might stop them.

Special Circumstances recruited her within two years. They weren't doing much modification to operatives yet, just the height and some additional musculature: child's play compared to the changes they'd make in the decades to come. Miranda Cable was one of the first voices to argue for change, and to prove her own theories, she gave up her eyes. They had been brown, a warm color which encouraged trust in patients; now they were gunmetal-grey, cold and intimidating. She knew she'd made the right choice when opponents who met her gaze during debates faltered, lost their train of thought.

Privacy went next: her office was a public space, wired for lie detection and emotional manipulation. It was easier to get used to than she'd expected; she was, after all, in that space to work.

After that came several rounds of surgery, neither the first nor the last set she'd undergo, but the largest number for a single change. By the end of them, she could hear and pronounce subsonic noises, make threats that would shake bones and prickle hairs, give orders it was difficult to refuse, and sound shrill siren alarms. To protect her from her own voice, the surgeons had had to alter the range of her hearing: she could hear dog whistles now, footsteps, changes in breath, and the little hesitations that revealed lies. Human voices were flatter than they used to be, less pleasant; music was nothing but noise.

The last sacrifice--there never was a last one, and never would be until she died. She was used to them. By the time Dr. Cable gave up her name, she never even noticed no one called her Miranda anymore.


End file.
